Qualitative Options with Online Communities

One of the great benefits if having a community is the opportunity to run both quantitative and qualitative research. When it comes to qualitative research, there is a wide range of options, for example online discussions, smartphone ethnography, online focus groups, and depth interviews. In this webinar I will provide some tips to help you match approaches to business problems, answering questions like when should you use a group technique (e.g. Focus groups) or a solo approach (such as diaries)?

8.
Smartphone Ethnography
❏ Define what you mean:
diaries, collections of images, videos of activities, focus on self or
others, or true auto-ethnography or collaborative ethnography
❏ Make the tasks clear, engaging, and not too onerous (consider
number of days, tasks per day, and task complexity)
❏ Think about how you are going to process the information, eg limit
video length, number of photos, complexity of passive data

9.
Engagement and closing the feedback loop
❏ Qual can be boring, and it can be engaging – think about the design,
think about issues like gamification
❏ Ask your community to suggest topics they would like to discuss
❏ Always give a chance for community members to give you a summary of
what they have shared
❏ Feedback comments, photos, videos etc to the community

10.
More than just a respondent
❏ MR is moving on from the word respondent, to participant – but in
many cases we can go much further
❏ Create judging panels, reviewers, new product trialists – people whose
views will be valued by your colleagues
❏ Give participants a chance to become skilled in your research
approaches – so they can add more value – from emojis to VR to video
❏ Give them a chance to set the agenda, to suggest projects & methods

11.
Collaborative qual
❏ Ask members to suggest topics and methods
❏ Smartphone ethnography is one type of collaborative qual
❏ Extend the smartphone approach to use members for trendspotting,
cool hunting, reporting, sleuthing
❏ Ask members to solve problems and come up with suggestions without
adopting a specific method

12.
Crowdsourcing the analysis
❏ Ask members to interpret their own contributions – from emojis to
additional comments and journaling
❏ Ask members to add comments and interpretations to other member’s
comments – especially in online discussion, blogs, vlogs etc
❏ Ask members to code and analyse qualitative material (not just text,
think signs, images, video)
❏ Consider training some members in analytic techniques

18.
VR and AR
❏ The price of virtual reality is falling,
opening up new opportunities, especially
for qual and communities
❏ Numbers of participants smaller
❏ The same equipment and training can be used multiple times
❏ Viable virtual worlds, holodecks, second life scenarios
❏ Augmented reality is seen by many as potentially bigger than VR

19.
More DIY Qual
❏ Automation lowering the barriers to
creating qual
❏ More tools available for qual
❏ AI chatbots to conduct qual
❏ AI to help analyse qual

20.
Big Picture
❏ Rapid qual is one of the key benefits of online communities
So, make sure colleagues are aware of it
❏ The range of qual options is growing
❏ Online, offline, phone
❏ Synchronous vs Asynchronous
❏ Text and/or beyond text
❏ Use qual to enhance members’ engagement with the community

23.
Idea Board
❏ Members can post ideas
❏ Other members can vote and comment on these ideas
❏ Popular ideas bubble up to the top of the list
❏ Ideas can be shared on social media - Twitter and Facebook
❏ Idea status can be updated by the Community Manager

25.
Social Listening
❏ Integrate your company’s Twitter account with your QP Community.
❏ Allow members or non-members to tweet at your company using a
predefined hashtag.
❏ The idea will automatically get added to the community.
❏ All members will be able to vote on and give feedback about the
idea.